How to create a survey using Survey Galaxy
Designing surveys is easy; isn’t it? The truth is that writing surveys is easy but writing surveys that will be effective is a little bit more difficult. The following twenty tips will help you with your survey questionnaire design.
1. What is the survey’s purpose?
Questionnaires are conducted for many reasons. By phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in a multitude of ways and for a variety of reasons. When designing a survey do not lose sight of its purpose.
2. Give the survey a good title
The survey title is a golden opportunity to instantly summarise a survey’s objective and encourage respondents to participate. Respondents are going to invest time in completing the survey so make them feel that their investment is worthwhile.
3. Ensure that you do not make the survey any longer than it needs to be
Every question asked should be asked for a reason. Concentrate on the ‘need to know’ questions and minimise ‘nice to know’ information.
4. Use plain English, avoid jargon and acronyms, maintain consistency and don’t ask questions that may result in ambiguous answers
Take care when wording a question. If a question can be interpreted in more ways than one then there is a risk that any analysis of the survey results will be worthless or at the very least suspect.
5. Avoid having long questions
Use succinct sentences wherever possible. Long questions tend to cause respondents discomfort and can lead to a higher level of incidents where respondents abandon a survey.
6. Ask only one question at a time
Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like tennis and athletics?’
7. Do not influence the answer
Avoid loading the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell alcohol to minors be prosecuted?’ is unlikely to have any value.
8. Make sure that the selected answer format allows the respondent to answer the question being asked
Ensure that the respondent is able to answer how they really feel or they may be less inclined to complete the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “Don’t know”, “Can’t say” or similar response option.
9. While you are compiling the survey consider, when the survey is complete, how the compiled data is going be analysed
Appreciate that questions that allow for a free text open ended response, such as when asking the respondent for their comments, is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider how answers can be grouped. For example “Indicate your length of service?” - ‘less than 3 year’, ‘between 3 and 8 years’ and ‘more than 8′.
10. Ensure that the questionnaire flows
Group questions into clear categories as this will make it easier for the participants completing the survey.
11. Target your respondents
Sometimes you will want to target a specific group, in others a cross section. If you can’t easily control the respondents consider including questions/answers that will allow you to filter out respondents who don’t fit your target profile.
12. Allow respondents to expand on their answers and/or make comments
By allowing respondents to make additional comments you will increase their satisfaction level and the comments will also give valuable feedback on the specific questions and/or the survey as a whole. Remember that for large sample collections free text open ended responses may prove difficult to analyze.
13. If the survey you are conducting is to be confidential ensure that you honour your pledge
If you have assured the respondents that the survey is confidential ensure that the individual data is not to be shared with anyone and not used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times and any identifying information destroyed once the survey has finished.
14. Weigh up the benefits and disadvantages of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable
If your respondents are to be anonymous then appreciate that you will be unable to follow up or match “pre” or “post” surveys. However in some cases allowing respondents to remain anonymous will allow respondents to respond without possible peer pressure.
15. Consideration carefully the best response format
Maintaining a consistency in the format used for responses is good practice. Keep in mind that when analyzing the data radio buttons are easier to analyze than check boxes that offer the respondent multiple responses. Do not use a check box if a radio response would do.
16. Advise the respondent as to how much time the survey will take to complete
If the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions then respondent drop out can become a problem. It is good practice to give an indication as to how long the survey is likely to take so that the participants can determine the best time to complete the survey.
17. Provide respondents with the survey end date
Encourage your invited respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise the respondents of the survey’s end date so that they have the opportunity to schedule the necessary time.
18. Test the survey
Before publishing a live survey publish a pilot survey to check for questions that are ambiguous or confusing and to confirm that the survey is aesthetically pleasing.
19. Before publishing the survey proof read the survey carefully
Carefully check and then check again that the survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If practical get a colleague to check the survey before you publish, if no one else is available then take a break before checking again.
20. Say ‘Thank You’
To complete surveys respondents have to devote their time and should be thanked either in a covering letter, at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider incentives such as entry into a prize draw or a reward.
To get started there are numerous survey software websites to choose from.
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